I really enjoy listening to stories. I remember them and keep them in my mind.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMIPeople have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.
More Abbas Kiarostami Quotes
-
-
If you are a businessman or a politician in Iran, you can get a visa as quickly as you ask for it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think being someone in love is so hard to define, so temporary, because retrospectively we often deny the state in which we were in love.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
You’ve noticed that same joke told by two different people, once works, and the other time doesn’t, simply because how the person edits it. The silences, the pauses, what they neglect, what they emphasize – all of this matters.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I’m not sure that my films show the reality of life in Iran; we show different aspects of life. Iran is a very extensive and expansive place, and sometimes, even for us who live there, some of the realities are very hard to comprehend.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I think life is so difficult to catch, it’s so furtive, that a copy, a film, can in no way catch it and represent it.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
There were years when Hitchcock was like a master to me, but now I think he’s so artificial. I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I’m not impressed by any technicality.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I really haven’t seen The Report in a long time. I don’t have a copy, but I’ll have to see it again. I think it would be good to put both these men next to each other.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Having an international voice is not really about whether we speak Persian or any other language.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
When I’m in the process of making a movie I’m not thinking about the finished result, and whether people have to see it once or more than once, and what the reaction to it will be. I just make it, and then I live with the consequences.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
It’s not so much a question of whether we’ve shot it through 35mm or digital video; what is important is whether the audience accepts it as real.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people’s minds to lazy minds.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
It seems that film-makers are being divided between those working in digital and those who are not. I think it’s not something predetermined – it all depends on what project we have in mind, and on that basis we choose the medium.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI -
Cinema gives you the opportunity to be both a grandparent and a grandchild whereas in life you cannot be both at the same time.
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI






